So ... with just a very tiny amount of looking into it, I have to say that the majority of people I've seen who've posted that sexual abuse meme (proclaim to the land of LJ that you've been abused and wear it as sort of badge of honor) are currently poly, heavily into BDSM, M/s relationships, or just enjoy showing their tits to the world repeatedly becuase it's "their choice, their body".

Some could see that as taking the power back, as exercising choices over who sees, who does, who is allowed on their own terms. And there is of course the slim chance that that's the case... but it's really doubtful.

Why don't most people see that behavior as a side effect? It's not that difficult to see that being sexualized at an early age (in the case of childhood sexual abuse) really easily lends itself to high levels of promiscuity and the NEED for sexual attention later in life. Girls who were abused as pre-teens typically end up equating (subconsciously usually) sex with love. If they don't want to fuck you, they can't possibly care about you. Affection is EQUAL to sex. This is especially true in the case of abuse from family members, older male family members.

This is just personal experience. I'm not a clinician, no training, haven't had some course work or a doctor to tell me it's so. I don't have any sort of statistics to back it up. I don't think I need statistics.

Anyway, this is one of the things that bothers me the most about forums like Live Journal. They aren't avenues for self discovery, they're the means to futher delusion and just another way to hide.

(I'm also really ticked by the number of "when I was a teenager, a peer pinched my ass, therefore I was sexually abused" instances I've seen. How fucking demeaning to anyone who's actually been through something terrible. Everyone has their different levels of tolerance, different levels of strength. I accept and understand that. But some people go out of their way to make up a terrible life that didn't exist, and how incredibly thoughtless is that?)

Comments

The idiots who CHOOSE things like anorexia, cutting, and god knows what else as a lifestyle/identity to get attention really make me ill because I've known plenty of people who were honestly driven to that kind of behavior by horrifying things that happened in their lives. So many sad and boring people out there trivialize the terrible things that other people experience against their will, and it's all in a pathetic attempt to seem interesting.

I worked with a young woman once who went out to bars every weekend and randomly hooked up with guys she met there. Every few weeks it seemed, when asked how her weekend was she would very casually claim that she "got raped again" so she wouldn't sound like a slut for having sex with all these random guys. Other people from the office had been to the same bars and had seen her basically slutting it up and throwing herself at these guys all night until one took her home. Now granted, nobody followed her home and watched her have sex with these guys (or tell them she didn't want to), but every few weeks? Never calling the cops? Immediately going back to the same places and doing the same thing? Sorry, but "rape" doesn't mean "man, in hindsight, I really wish I hadn't had sex with that guy I just met in a bar... it really makes me look and feel like a slut".

Also, "slut". Because I need to use that word a few more times in this comment.

I totally agree with the sentiment, but there's a huge chasm between simply not being ashamed and being proud, which is unfortunately how this tends to come off when the wrong type of people start using it.

The chick who started this whole thing began it as some sort of altruistic "how can I help" thing. Which I suppose is fine, just a little short sighted I think. People love memes. People on livejournal especially. Which is, to me I think, one of the reasons it's sort of extra insulting. She might as well have made a quiz.

If you read any serious medical literature on people who were sexually abused as children, one of the first things that's always mentioned is that such people tend to equate sex with affection and that they frequently engage in unusual sexual practices. The ignorance of average people... hell, I don't even bother asking "why" anymore, it's like asking why rocks fall down.

The "somebody pinched my ass I WAS ABUUUUUUSED" folks... hm. Haven't met any, honestly. But then, I don't bother with idiots, that probably has something to do with it.

I didn't mean in communities, I meant in individual journals. The "friends list" system of things, while encouraging a sense of community, also encourages performance for an audience, as does the entire idea of a jouranl for public consumption in the first place.

Online journals in and of themselves aren't a bad thing. But the inbred nature of communication and drama mongering/attention whore-dom on LiveJournal certainly is a bad thing, especially when you consider the average LJ user age is 14 - 16.

Promiscuity and sexual abuse go hand in hand. They just do. You can't explain that away with a poorly made slipperly slope argument about homosexuality. These are apples and bologna sandwiches you are comparing. Yes, if I were an intellectual lightweight who needed to blow things up to their "logical" conclusion in order to make a strained argument about something then yeah, I could see me going for the "abuse causes homos" angle.

There's a huge gulf of possibility between sex through a sheet for purposes of procreation only and "I like to be beaten in public and have "slut" carved into my inner thighs while my master pisses in my mouth". It's not an either or situation and I didnt say that people who like a little spanking or kink now and again are all victims of abuse. I didn't even get *close* to saying that so I think you're pretty off base here and didn't really get my point.

I DID say that the BDSM, M/s, exhbitionist attention whores on LJ who are posting it stand a high chance of being into their given kinks because of whatever abuse they've been through, in the case of sexual abuse at an early age. Rape victims above a certain age don't tend to follow those same patterns, but systematic sexual abuse is pretty easy to track. For example, I personally have never met a stripper who wasn't abused as a pre-teen. I'm sure they exist... I personally have just never met one (and I used to work at a "go go bar")

The idea that they just happen to talk about sex more and are therefore more likely to post that meme is ...well it's silly really. The only way I can see someone not at least giving the connection a fair shot at validity is if they had some specific need to *not* believe that. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not saying you're wrong. But I'm also not buying your arguments here.

Don't feed me that whole Puritanical intolerant culture crap. I've known enough people into all manner of "deviant" sex to know that what you like having done to your penis to get off has little to do with your actual day to day character and even less to do with how society as a whole views you (unless you're into children). Getting gagged and spanked doesn't make you all that special and it certain doesn't mean you're one of the oppressed. Spare me.